Don't Shoot
by Gustave Daae Y
Summary: It's the finale of the Phantom's Opera. He's on one knee, begging Christine to love him. The unthinkable happens:a gun shot. ExC warning: Character death. One shot.


**Author's Note: Warning. This one's a bit dark. Rate T for violence, blood, and suicide. Character death.**

 **Don't shoot!**

"Please ...Christine..." The pathetic phantom pleaded on one knee, "let me be beside you...I beg you. I can't live in the dark anymore. You are my light. My life. My breath. You are the reason my heart still beats."

The Phantom's trebling hand went to his end finger, removing the gold, white and black ring from it and offered it to her.

"Marry me. Please...I beg you..." He was sobbing his request.

He didn't wait for an answer. He grabbed her hand, a little more brutal than he intended to, and forced the beautiful yet simple ring onto her small wedding finger. Then he took her small hand in his and kissed it. Her soft flesh tasted sweet to his dead, swollen lips.

"Please say you love me. I can't bare to be without..."

The Phantom couldn't finish his sentence because Christine had removed his mask, revealing his ugliness to the world.

"No!" The Phantom screamed as his hand shot up to cover his face. He soon found it rather pointless to try to cover it and let his hand be used to grab Christine's arm and drag her across the stage.

The police, being frightened and confused, began firing their arms at the Phantom.

"Don't shoot!" Raoul yelled at the police, but he could not be heard over the never ceasing sound of gunshots being fired.

The Phantom had made his way to the side of the stage, still in view of the audience, where there was a door that could lead him underground to his home. Just as he opened it, he heard another gunshot fire and out of the corner of his eye, Christine fell to the floor.

"Christine!" The phantom and Raoul shouted.

Raoul sprinted out of his opera box and began making his way through the opera house's corridors, trying to make it to Christine as quickly as possible.

The Phantom, who was right beside Christine when she went down, acted rapidly. He bent down, took her in his arms and firmly pressed his hands to the fatal wound on her stomach.

"Christine." The Phantom's sobs were the only things heard by the audience for the gunfire had ceased once the opera star had been injured.

"Angel..." Christine called for the monster.

A few police officers rapidly approached the couple with the intent of either helping Christine or removing the Phantom from the scene.

"If you take one step closer," the Phantom reached into the folds of his black cloak and pulled out a handgun of his own, displaying it for all the world to see.

The police did not take his threat lightly and kept their distance.

"Drop your weapons." The phantom demanded.

The obeyed and the officers backed away from the tragic scene.

He placed the loaded gun beside his thigh, within hand distance and went back to caressing his dying angel.

"Angel...I'm sorry..." She said, crying from pain.

"Don't apologize. You did nothing wrong. You are proof that angels exist."

"No... I am no angel...no I did do something terrible." She took a breath with every word, "you were...so kind to me...and I never did...anything to thank you."

"Christine...hush. No more talk of this..."

"And how did I repay you..." Christine's head buried herself in her angel's shoulder, "I lured you here...so they could kill you..."

"There is nothing that I blame you for. I love you, Christine. You'll be alright."

"We both know...that's a lie..." Christine breathed heavily.

"No...No! I will not let you die! You just can't."

"Maybe...it's for the best..."

"Don't you dare say that, Christine."

"It's true...I won't have to break anyone's heart now..."

"By breaking both of them? Please, my beautiful angel, don't give up now."

"Angel...I want you to know something..."

"Christine..."

"Angel...I love you..."

"No...say anything but that. Don't wound my heart any more than it already is."

"But it's...true. I love you... I only wish that I could have told you...sooner. It's tragic...that I only... realized in death...who I truly love..."

Her breath was growing weaker by the second. She didn't have much time.

"It should be me with that bullet in my abdomen." The phantom's tears of sorrow mingled with Christine's tears of pain. "You are so young...have so much to live for."

"You have...much to...live for...too."

"No Christine. You are my reason to live...but now..."

"Angel..." She said. "I have...one last favor to ask of you..."

"Anything, darling, anything."

"Kiss me..."

The Phantom was a bit taken aback by her request. And he was more surprised when Christine used whatever strength she had left to force her lips on his own.

Her lips were wet from tears, but they were also plump and soft to the phantom's lips. It took him a fraction of a second to return the passion back to her. He had always dreamed of kissing her like this, holding her in his arms as he was doing. But the taste in his mouth soon turned bitter rather than sweet as Christine grew limp.

The Phantom kept his mouth on hers for a brief moment after the life had left her. But when he pulled apart, he realized that he had been kissing a corpse.

"No...no...No!" The phantom shouted his anger and sorrow to an audience who wouldn't listen. "No...Please no. My Christine!"

The Phantom cradled his darling closer and prayed to a God that he barely believed in to return her.

Raoul pushed his way through the performers to find the tragic scene: his Christine lying dead with the man responsible holding her chest to his own.

"Christine..." Raoul said, tears pouring from his eyes. "No...no...Christine!"

Raoul rushed over to Christine, longing to take her in his arms, but he was stopped by the Phantom, who held up his own weapon.

"One more step and you die." The Phantom said.

The Phantom gave one last look at his darling Christine. He had known pain his entire life but nothing compared to the pain he felt at that moment. He kissed her forehead, like a parent would to a child who had just fallen asleep.

"Sleep Christine." He told the lifeless body. "Your suffering is over."

He gently placed Christine on floor and places her arms on top of her chest. He then plucked the rose out of her hair and placed it in her folded hands.

His mannerisms changed drastically after that. He stood up and faced the crowd, a cruel smile in his lips.

"But your suffering," his eyes went from one officer to the next, to the managers and then to Raoul, "has barely begun."

The Phantom pulled picked up the gun he had set on the floor.

"Six bullets. I have six bullets in the gun in my hand. Six victims. Six victims will die tonight by my hand."

It happened so fast that no one in the audience understood what had taken place. But the Phantom knew.

Five shots happened within five seconds.

The first shot rang through the theater like a crack of thunder.

A police officer closest to the Phantom fell to the floor. He died instantly, the bullet going through his head.

The second shot was aimed at the police officer in the orchestra pit. The bullet hit his heart and ended his life.

The third went towards a performer: Carlotta. The bullet was aimed for her throat, and with the deadly precision the Phantom had, he didn't miss his mark.

The fourth and fifth went towards box five. The bullets hit Andre and Firmin in their backs. They two had been trying to escape. They were unsuccessful in their endeavor.

One bullet left.

The Phantom looked straight into Raoul's eyes. Raoul saw something that terrified him: he saw a broken soul. Raoul always viewed the Phantom as a creature who only wanted Christine to either kill her or use her to fulfill his desires for flesh. He had never stopped to consider that the Phantom, the monster from the catacombs, could actually truly love Christine.

Those depressed and empty grey eyes seemed to have an effect on Raoul. They made him forget that they belonged to the man that just murdered five people. Suddenly, Raoul felt like a monster. Raoul knew this poor creature's background: tormented from birth; tortured in that gypsy camp; forced to live in the sewer because he was unable to acquire a home; unable to have any friends or any companionship; longing for the love and touch of a woman but unable to obtain it. He knew that there were only two people in the world that knew his name: Erik. Raoul and Giry only knew the monsters name. Raoul knew all of this horror. But instead of helping his poor creature, he had set a trap to kill him.

But the trap didn't kill him: it killed Christine instead.

Christine: a women so perfect that she befriended the Phantom and saw him as a man even though she knew nothing of the torture he had been through. She didn't even know his name yet she called him her lover in her dying moments.

And now she was gone. And Raoul knew it was his own fault.

"Raoul." The Phantom sneered his name as if it were a vulgar word. "You destroyed my angel. And I will make your pain the worst of them all."

"I'm sorry." Was all Raoul could mutter to the Phantom.

The Phantom didn't hear this.

Raoul knew death was coming. The Phantom had every right to take Raoul's life. Raoul had murdered Christine. Raoul wanted to die.

Raoul waited for the Phantom to raise the gun and deliver the finale bullet to its last victim.

Raoul closed his eyes, unable to look at those pitiful eye any longer.

He waited.

He waited for the angel of death to being justice.

A gunshot rang through the opera house.

Strange thing though, Raoul didn't feel any pain. He wondered if the rumors were true: that death was painless.

He dared to open his eyes.

What he saw horrified him.

It was horrifically beautiful. The Phantom laid limp over Christine dead body. The Phantom was completely silent. His head was one top of her chest, right above her heart. His arms were embracing her. It was as if death could not even stop his undying devotion and love towards her. A pool of blood surrounded them. It was near impossible to tell who the blood belonged too. All blood is red, of course, whether it belong to an angel who never harmed a soul or a deformed monster who murdered eight.

Raoul looked around to see go fired the shot. But he found that the officers had their weapons on the floor: unused.

So who had killed the immortal Opera Ghost?

Raoul hesitantly approached the horrific scene. He bent down to the two dead lovers. Beside the lovers mingled in each other's embrace and blood, there laid the gun that the Phantom had used on his victims.

Raoul picked up the lethal weapon.

He opened the bullet compartment.

There were no bullets in the gun.

' _Six bullets'_ the Phantom's voice seem to whisper into Raoul's mind. ' _Six victims will die tonight by my hand_.'

Raoul took a closer look at the Phantom's dead body. His mask was removed. The deformity was horrifying but not as horrid as the bullet shaped hole in his deformed temple.

"Lord have mercy on his soul." Was all Raoul could muster.

The Phantom had kept his word. This was torture on Raoul's soul: much worse than the punishment he had given the others. The others were dead, safely off to heaven. Raoul would have to live with the guilt of causing the deaths of two innocent beings. The very thought of waking up the next morning seemed impossible to him at the moment.

The Phantom had kept his word that night: six had fallen by his gun that night. However, nine victims fell by his hand; eight guilty and one innocent.

Javert.

Joseph Bouquet.

Piangi.

The two police officers whose names were Michael and Charles.

Carlotta.

Andre.

Firmin.

Erik


End file.
